Blog Post 9

Mr. McClung
In Volume 4, Mr. McClung writes about his school year as a teacher. He got this idea from a mentor to write a reflective blog on the school year and what it has taught him. He has done this since his first year teaching and has received many great reviews. In this post, he talks about the one thing he struggled with this year as a teacher, the perception that he receives from his co-workers. That one thing took him almost the entire school year to figure out that it wasn't about his co-workers it was about his students. Many times in our lives we are faced with the one question, what does he/she really think of me? After reading Mr. McClung's post I come to realize that it doesn't matter where are you are in life, you are still going to have that taunting question looming over your head, unless you face it head on. Mr. McClung held on to the one rule that he set for himself which helped him face his problem head on, "are the kids having fun?" I believe that when I become a teacher I will want to set this rule for myself in order to ensure that I am not pushing myself into a race that I will be unable to win. The perceptions of others doesn't matter because everyone has their own opinion about others, the only perception that we need to worry about the our own. We could ask ourselves, are we fulfilling the things we want to accomplish/teaching philosophy? And the real question that we ,as future educators, need to ask ourselves is; are we in this for the students?

Mr. McClung continues his post by talking about another topic that he faced this year as a teacher. This school year he found himself relying on old lesson plans and falling into to a routine that bother him. He thought he lost this ability to be creative and fell into a comfortable routine, which reflected in his teaching. Then he was presented with an opportunity to teach a different subject and grade level the following year and he talks about how it will be a welcomed change for the following school year. I love how Mr. McClung has set so many standards for himself. He looks back on his years in school and realizes that he ball is in his court, that he is the one that can make all the difference. This is very refreshing to come across someone who has a passion to make a difference. I hope that once I become a teacher that I will be able to recognize where I have been lacking, so that I will be able to improve each year to become a better educator.

I chose to read Volume 1 of Mr. McClung's end of the school year reflection because I have a lot anxieties about being a first time teacher, so I felt this blog would be appropriate to ease my anxieties. In Volume 1, Mr. McClung talks about everything he learned his first year teaching. A few of his topics that I really enjoyed and hope to carry with me are be flexible, listen to your students and never stop learning. Mr. McClung talks about being flexible and how "the lesson your teach and the lesson you plan are always different." I feel this is something I am glad I learned now, because I like things to be in an orderly fashion, so I need to realized control isn't going to be an option in some aspects of teaching. Mr. McClung said that during an end of the year survey that one of the answers spoke to him. The question asked was "I know my teacher cares about me as a person when he" the response from the student was "-Listens to what I say." He states "I truly believe that teachers do not know enough about the students they are teaching." He talks about how this builds a student teacher relationship based on respect. I feel that he is totally correct in saying this, children thrive on our attention which is a form of respect. No we aren't going to be able to give our undivided attention to each of our students all day ,however just listening to what they have to say or their opinion on a subject could potentially make all the difference. The final topic which I really enjoyed in this post was never stop learning. Mr. McClung talks about how some educators refuse to learn and grow. My goal for my everyday life is to learn something new every day. This is something I feel will be fairly easy for me to do as a teacher. Teaching is something that you learn how to do with your students and I feel by doing this that I will be able to ease into the anxiety of becoming a first year teacher. Mr. McClung's blog post helped me to realize a lot of things and I hope to keep those thoughts with me throughout my years as a student and a teacher.